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Green Tomato Pickle

A pickle made by brining sliced green tomatoes and onions with spices and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sprinkle sliced green tomatoes and onions with coarse sea salt and let them stand overnight to drain.

  2. Drain the mixture by tying it in a large cloth and hanging it up.

  3. The next day, layer the drained tomatoes and onions in a kettle, alternating layers.

Cook

  1. Sprinkle the spices over the layers.

  2. Mix the ground mustard with vinegar and pour enough vinegar over the mixture to cover it.

  3. Bring to a boil and let it cook for 20 minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the pickle and give it its tart, fresh-vegetable body.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma that balance the sharp vinegar.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the tomatoes and onions so they drain and firm up.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Ground mustard
Adds pungent heat and sharpness that deepens the flavour of the vinegar.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, nutty pungency that carries through the cooked pickle.

The step that matters

Draining overnight with salt. Salting and draining pulls out excess water from the tomatoes and onions; if they are not drained well, the pickle will be watery and dilute the vinegar.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, mustard, pepper, allspice, clove, vinegar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, mustard, pepper, allspice, clove, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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